by Edward Paice
* .Nobody can get up quite the same enthusiasm for a South African that the South African can’ observed one British trooper with the EAMR (see RH/Drury)
* After his dismissal Malleson went to London, where he took up residence in the Naval & Military Club for his defence against what he termed ‘lying and scurrilous paper accounts [of his performance] from the Cape’. In 1918, with the rank of Major-General, he was sent by Military Intelligence on the ‘Transcaspia Expedition’, countering the Bolshevik penetration of Persia and Afghanistan. Once again he courted controversy: the huge cost of the expedition became a public scandal.
* Meinertzhagen, p. 163. Stewart was equally struck by ‘the very indifferent view that [many South African officers] took of the African and Indian soldiers. To them they were just “niggers” or “coolies”’ (see Gurkha Museum/Stewart Papers/5RGR/Appx1/14 p. 64)
* Tighe retired in 1920 with the rank of Lieutenant-General. Somewhat appropriately for a bustling commander who hated inaction, he died while running for a bus in 1925.
* The 2nd Division consisted of 1st SA Mounted Brigade (Manie Botha) and 3rd SA Infantry Brigade (Berrangé) with 2nd and 4th Batteries SAFA, 28th Mountain Battery, and 12th Howitzer Brigade.
* German dispositions: 1/FK, 3/FK, 17/FK, ‘W’/K, 5/SchK, 7/SchK facing the advance; 30/FK (von Heyden-Linden) at the Pangani River; 26/FK (Naumann) at Same; 17/FK (Kempner) at Tanga. See Boell (1), p. 189.
† ‘River Column’ (Brigadier-General Sheppard): squadron 17th Cavalry, 2nd Rhodesia Regiment, 130th Baluchis, composite battalion of 2nd and 3rd Kashmir Rifles, No. 5 Battery SAFA, 27th Mountain Battery, double company 61st Pioneers; ‘Centre Column’ (Brigadier-General Hannyngton): 40th Pathans, EAMR detachment, 129th Baluchis, half-battalion 2nd Kashmir Rifles, Nos 6 and 7 Field Batteries, section EA Pioneers; ‘Eastern Column’ (Lieutenant-Colonel Fitzgerald): one company KAR MI; 3/KAR, one section 27th Mountain Battery.
* See Hopkirk, p. 2; the efforts of Indian defence chiefs to counter the threat of German intrigues in Persia and Afghanistan are described as redolent of a game of ‘hunt the slipper’ by Hopkirk (p. 120) in his authoritative account of this ‘Great Game’, a not dissimilar predicament to that which would soon confront the Allies in their pursuit of von Lettow-Vorbeck.
* Von Lettow-Vorbeck was aware of the Turkish-Sanusi alliance, and prospect of an imminent uprising against the British, as early as March 1915 (according to entries in his personal diary).
* Delville Wood was taken by Lukin’s brigade on 15 July 1916. Three days later German artillery opened fire on them from three sides. During this ferocious bombardment it was estimated that seven shells fell per second, and that 20,000 shells fell on one square mile alone. The South Africans’ orders were to hold the wood at all costs. On 20 July fewer than 159 men emerged from the wood out of almost 3,200 who had entered it. Including the wounded in the wood, there were just 755 survivors. By the end of the war the brigade had suffered casualties equal to three times their initial draft.
* Braukämpfer (p. 54) asserts that Lij Iyasu’s ‘final conversion to the Muslim faith did not occur before 1916’.
* R. Kaplan, Surrender Or Starve (Vintage Books, 2003), p. 32. In similar vein Edward Gibbon famously observed: ‘encompassed by the enemies of their religion, the Ethiopians slept for near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten’.
* The opportunism of Frobenius’s mission to secure Abyssinian assistance in eastern Africa was highlighted when, after the war, he published Der Völkerzirkus unserer Feinde (‘The people’s circus of our enemies’), in which he mocked the Allies’ use of black soldiers, portraying the latter as circus animals. See Jan Nederveen Pieterse, White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture (Yale University Press, 1992).
* German troop dispositions in the far west and north-west were as follows: in Ruanda, three companies under Captain Wintgens (26/FK, Ruanda ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies) – fifty-five Europeans, 600 askari with five machine-guns and three artillery pieces; in Urundi, Major von Langenn-Steinkeller’s Abteilung (thirty-six Europeans, 250 askari, 100 levies, with three machine-guns and two artillery pieces); in Kigoma, two companies under Captain Zimmer (145 Europeans and 165 askari with one machine-gun and nine artillery pieces).
* Belgian concerns about its ally’s intention were seemingly as justified as vice versa. On 8 February 1916 Colonel House, Woodrow Wilson’s closest confidant, had informed King Albert that ‘England and France would accept the idea of a vast German colony made up of Belgian, Portuguese and other countries’ possessions to the north of South Africa’ in return for a US-brokered peace agreement in Europe. Albert was said to be ‘profoundly offended’ by the suggestion. (See Leonard P. Ayres, The War with Germany (Washington, 1919), passim.)
* ‘Lake Force’ was split between Namirembe Bay and Ukerewe Island and consisted of: 98th Infantry (three officers and 200 other ranks), 4/KAR (twenty-seven officers and 730 other ranks), Uganda Police Service Battalion (eleven officers and 400 other ranks), Baganda Rifles (ten officers and 350 other ranks), and the Nandi Scouts (seven officers and 230 other ranks).
* The Graf Goetzen was salvaged by the British in 1924. She had been so thoroughly greased prior to her scuttling that she was in almost perfect working order. Relaunched in 1927, she still plies the shores of the lake today as the Liemba.
* British troop dispositions: Murray’s Column – two companies BSAP (260 rifles), four companies NRP (540 rifles); Hawthorn’s Column – one squadron, 1/SAR (200 rifles), four coys 1/KAR (600 rifles); Flindt’s Column – one squadron 2/SAR (170 rifles) and two coys 1/KAR (223 rifles); Rodger’s Column – 2/SAR less one squadron (462 rifles), one coy NRP (138 rifles). Total: 2,593 rifles, with twenty-six machine-guns and fourteen field guns (Hordern, p. 486). South Africa had provided seventy-four officers and 1,265 other ranks for this front by March 1916. The total strength of 1/SAR and 2/SAR would eventually rise to ninety-nine officers and 1,772 other ranks. They became known as South Africa’s ‘Forgotten Army’.
* Franken was shot by Lieutenant ‘Acid Guts’ Bryce Hendrie who then found Murray’s Intelligence officer’s notebook in Franken’s pocket. ‘How it got there I have never heard explained’ Murray remarked (see IWM/ Hopkins).
* In 1921 Spicer-Simson was elected the first Secretary-General of the new International Hydrographic Bureau, a position he held until his retirement in 1937; among those who unequivocally elected him to the post in 1921 was none other than his Belgian opposite number during the Tanganyika campaign, Commandant Goor. Geoffrey Spicer-Simson died in British Columbia in 1947 leaving a widow, Amy, but unfortunately no offspring to defend him against the publication in 1968 of Peter Shankland’s The Phantom Flotilla. A ‘lurid and often inaccurate’ account (Mackenzie (1), p. 410), this was largely based on the tale as woven by the expedition’s doctor. Not only did he not like Spicer-Simson, but he was manifestly an outsider on an expedition governed by naval rules and regulations. The result was a rather grotesque caricature of Spicer-Simson which was perpetuated by other subsequent accounts that drew uncritically on Shankland as a source.
* The Westtruppen now comprised: Abteilung Zingel (with General Wahle) – 26/FK, 7/ResK (Kalman), ‘Bukoba’ Kompanie (Ralph Wahle), and Batterie Vogel; Abteilung von Langenn-Steinkeller – 7/FK (Wentzel), Muansa ‘A’ and ‘D’ Kompanie (Günzert), and munitions column (Dannert); Abteilung Wintgens – Ruanda ‘B’ Kompanie (Bockmann), Ruanda ‘A’ Kompanie (Langen), 29/FK (Siebel), machine-gun company (Besch) and 3.7cm Batterie (Vortag). Attached to Wintgens was the main artillery column, Abteilung Hübener: 22/FK and a naval howitzer.
* Kraut’s force included 2/FK, 5/FK, 10/FK, 15/FK, 16/FK, 19/FK, 25/FK, 5/SchK, 8/SchK and ‘L’ Kompanie.
* The German companies were: Otto (23/FK, 24/FK, 6/SchK, 14/ResK); Schulz (4/FK, 9/FK, 13/FK, 21/FK); von Lieberman (11/FK, 27/FK, ‘W’ Kompanie); Tafel (1/FK, 17/FK, 30/FK, 1/SchK) and Stemmermann (3/FK, 14/FK, 18/FK, 22/FK, 4/SchK)
.
* See WF/PetitÉcho/1917. Another White Father, Père Mazé, was a prisoner of Wintgens and managed to escape during his retreat and join Père Paradis at Lupembe.
* Crowe, p. 239. Boell put the Western Command strength at the start of the Belgian offensive at 3,400 troops, armed with nineteen machine-guns and twenty-two guns. Losses up to the junction with Kraut are enumerated as follows: 115 killed in action, nine dead, 859 captured, 208 missing, 548 left behind, 916 deserted (mostly the Mwanza garrison’s local askari ), a total of 2,655 casualties which reduced Wahle’s strength to 745 rifles (see Boell (1), p. 296).
† See, for example, Lettow-Vorbeck (1), p. 170: ‘the mutual personal esteem and chivalry which existed throughout in spite of the exhausting warfare carried out on both sides’.
* Sheppard’s 1st East African Brigade comprised: 25th Royal Fusiliers, 30th Punjabis, 130th Baluchis, 3rd Kashmir Rifles, half double company 61st Pioneers. Hannyngton’s 2nd East African Brigade: 57th Rifles, Gold Coast Regiment, 1/3 and 2/3KAR. O’Grady’s 3rd East African Brigade: 2nd Loyal North Lancs, 129th Baluchis, 40th Pathans, 1/2 and 2/2KAR.
* IWM/Lewis: letter to his mother, 26 December 1916. This was one of the first times that Mills bombs were used in the campaign.
† Smuts’s letter of 7 November 1916 conveying the news of his award to von Lettow-Vorbeck read: ‘May I hope that, though we are unfortunately compelled to oppose each other, an expression of my sincere congratulations on your richly deserved distinction may not be distasteful to you.’
* The Third Expeditionary Force comprised 1st, 2nd and 4th Mountain Batteries, three battalions from Regimento 23 (Coimbra), Regimento 24 (Aveiro) and Regimento 28 (Figueira da Foz), three QF batteries from Grupo 4, 5, and 8. Total strength: 211 officers and 5,985 men with 1,378 horses and 159 vehicles.
* Epopeia Maldita, the title of combatant Antonio de Cértima’s book, published in 1924; Newala was also referred to as ‘The Palace of Good Fortune’ by another disillusioned soldier (Selvagem, p. 200).
* TNA/FO/929/7. The ‘Nyassa territories’ refer to an area controlled by the Companhia do Niassa in the north of Portuguese East Africa.
* Hazleton, p. 230. Between September and November 1916 10,000 horses, 11,000 oxen and 2,500 donkeys expired in the field, and livestock wastage rates for the year were running at nearly 300 per cent (as against sixteen per cent in 1914 and sixty-seven per cent in 1915). One Australian with the South African Veterinary Corps, C.C. Doak, was so distressed by this that he took his own life with an overdose of morphia. By the end of 1918 a total of 31,000 horses, 33,000 mules and 34,000 donkeys had perished. The Official History of the War: Veterinary Servicesdescribed the campaign as ‘a chamber of horrors in so far as animal life was concerned’ (p. 417). Von Lettow-Vorbeck tried to maximise the difficulties of using animal transport. He frequently sent his veterinary officer, Dr Friedrich Huber, to survey possible lines of retreat with a view to choosing one that would be most deadly for Allied livestock.
* Welbourn, p. 225; Kabali’s testimony was subsequently instrumental in securing an official reprimand of seven Belgian officers and NCOs for the mistreatment of carriers.
† Private Rowland, a Frontiersman from Bury, Lancashire, wrote of the ‘Kavirondo’ headman of his carrier column: ‘On the first occasion that I met him . . . I shook his hand and those of his friendly team. Whenever our paths crossed they would come to greet me with hand outstretched and broad smiles across their shining black faces. I count it among my happiest memories to have known them’ (Liddle/Rowland).
* Beer, p. 270. George Beer was the Chief of the Colonial Division of the American delegation at Versailles.
* See The Daily Mail, Durban, 21 November 1916. It also emerged that 2/SAH had been on the verge of mutiny in September when Captain Lee wrote to Colonel de Jager, ‘I wish to bring to your notice that ninety per cent of the men returned as unfit since leaving Kondoa-Irangi were rendered unfit by insufficient rations’. Lee’s letter contained an implicit threat that his men would only advance when better and more plentiful rations were received (SANMMH/A/416/3: Lee to de Jager, 16 September 1916).
* Smuts, p. 141. The comment was attributed to General von Freytag, Deputy Chief of the German General Staff.
* Smuts, p. 144. Smuts had first called for an additional three battalions of KAR to be formed in April 1916. This possibility had, however, been under consideration ever since Wapshare’s command, and the reformation of the previously disbanded 2/KAR was approved by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff on 4 March 1916 (two weeks after Smuts’s arrival in East Africa).
* Smuts, p. 144. Smuts had first called for an additional three battalions of KAR to be formed in April 1916. This possibility had, however, been under consideration ever since Wapshare’s command, and the reformation of the previously disbanded 2/KAR was approved by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff on 4 March 1916 (two weeks after Smuts’s arrival in East Africa).
* Wintgens was awarded the Pour le Méritefor his record in the campaign, as was his brother Kurt, an airman on the Western Front. Only 214 such awards were made to field officers in the Great War and this was the only case of brothers winning the distinction.
* ‘Edforce’ comprised contingents from 30th Punjabs (550 rifles), 1st Cape Corps (980 rifles), 1/6KAR (990 rifles), 4th Nigeria Battalion (220 rifles), and a mountain battery. Colonel Dyke’s 130th Baluchis, 4/3KAR, and the KAR Mounted Infantry – who had been sent to cut off Wintgens from the north and west during April – were withdrawn at the same time as Murray’s Rhodesians. The Belgian pursuit battalions were IV, VI, XI and XIII (each c. 500 rifles) under the command of Colonel Thomas.
* See Boell, p. 329. Belgian casualties: sixty askari dead, eleven wounded, forty-one captured; and two Belgians captured. British casualties: three Europeans killed and one missing, seventy askari dead. German casualties: one askari and one carrier killed; one German and two askari wounded.
* When Naumann finally surrendered to the Cape Corps the latter had covered 1,100 miles in two and a half months in pursuit of their quarry, seventy-five per cent of it on foot.
* In German POW camps, to be sent to the Portuguese barracks was a punishment reserved only for British soldiers unpopular with their compatriots.
* Aumann’s three companies were ‘L’ Kompanie (Bauer), ‘A’ Kompanie (Jaeck), and 5/FK (Gutknecht).
* Schönfeld commanded three companies: 2/SchK (Schlawe), Abteilung Aruscha, and Abteilung Pangani – 300 rifles in all, supported by a Königsberg gun. Lincke commanded five companies: 6/FK (Poppe), 7/FK (Kalmann), 15/FK (Lincke), 24/FK (Schülein) and 29/FK (Schroeder) with a battery of artillery (Vogel) – a total of sixty-four Germans and 540 askari.
* No. 1 Column (Colonel Orr): 8/SAI (less two companies), Gold Coast Regiment, 33rd Punjabis (reduced to a machine-gun detachment only), 2/2KAR and 27th Mountain Battery. No. 2 Column (Colonel Ridgway): 7/SAI, 1/3 KAR (Colonel Fitzgerald), 2/3 KAR (Colonel Phillips), 22nd Mountain Battery. No. 3 Column (Colonel Taylor): 8/SAI (two companies), 3/3 KAR (Colonel Dickinson) and 40th Pathans (detachment). German force (Captain von Lieberman): Spangenburg’s detachment (21/FK and a ‘regiment’ of Angoni levies), Kempner’s detachment (11/FK, 27/FK, two artillery pieces), Büchsel’s detachment (17/FK and 14/ResK), and Steinhäuser’s detachment (10/FK, 3/SchK, 10/SchK) – a total of ninety-five Germans and 850 askari
* O’Grady advanced in three columns: 3/2KAR on the right; 25th Royal Fusiliers, 259th (Loyal North Lancs) Machine-gun Company and 3/4KAR on the left; and 30th Punjabis in the centre.and British casualties were severe, particularly among the 30th Punjabis (seven of whose eight British officers were wounded, to add to the 250 other ranks killed or wounded). No further move could be attempted until October, and in the meantime there were many among the British ranks who began to wonder if the campaign would only end when they were fighting in the streets of Cape Town.
* 55th (Coke’s) Rifles, 127th Baluchis and 25th Cavalry commanded by Colonel Dyke.
† British troops’ strengths on 6 October were as follows: Lindi Force (Beves): No. 3 Column (O’Grady) 1/2KAR, 3/2KAR, Bharatpur Infantry – 1,100 rifles, No. 4 Column (Tytler) 3/4KAR, 30th Punjabis, 25th Royal Fusiliers, 259th Machine-gun Company – 1,100 rifles, Reserve – 400 rifles, Lines of Communication – 1,000 rifles. Kilwa Force (Hannyngton): No. 1 Column (Orr) 1/3KAR, 2/2KAR, 27th Mountain Battery – 1,200 rifles, No. 2 Column (Ridgway) 2/3KAR – 2,200 rifles, Reserve (Dyke) 55th Rifles, 127th Baluchis – 1,400 rifles, 25th Cavalry – 600 rifles, Lines of Communication – 1,100 rifles. Nigerian Brigade (Mann) – 2,000 rifles. After Naumann’s surrender Colonel Breytenbach’s 10/SAH and Colonel Morris’s 1st Cape Corps proceeded to Kilwa and 4/4KAR to Lindi.
* Tafel’s column (10 November 1917): 5/FK, 22/FK, Abteilung Pangani and ‘L’ Kompanie. Schönfeld’s column: 23/FK, 24/FK, 1/SchK and 3/SchK. Otto’s column: 1/FK, 6/FK, 7/FK, 15/FK, 29/FK. Total strength: 181 Europeans, 1,558 askari and 3,732 carriers and followers.
